Perfect Lies (13 page)

Backtrack the thoughts. Slipped through the cracks. Sadie slipped through the cracks twice. But no one can avoid fate. I am fate. I am the pale, horrible hands of fate, and now I’ve come for Sadie again, and it’s wrong to be here but it’s wrong to be everywhere, so here is fine.

Pixie rubs her temples.
Am I giving you a headache?
I think.

“You
are
a headache.”

I grin. Lean back in my chair. It’s okay. This is fine. Just one more step, one more thing to do, I can turn it off, turn it all off. This has to be done. I think about James, instead, think about his lips to drown out the constant ringing of wrong in my ears, to reset my equilibrium. James said to do whatever they asked me to. I love James.

I love him.

We’ll make everything right.

Pixie mimes vomiting into the planter next to our table. “Please go back to the crazy-train thoughts. I can’t stomach hearing someone think about him that way.”

“Jealous.”

“Yes, please, someone get me my own sociopathic, sex-obsessed slimeball! How can I go on without a man like that in my life?”

“You don’t know him,” I snap, surprised by how much her criticism of him stings. Is it because we’re friends now? I think Pixie is my only friend in the whole world besides James. And I’ve known her all of two days? Three? I don’t know her. And she’s dangerous, I keep forgetting.

I drain the rest of my smoothie, then look at her. “The last time I came to find Sadie, a girl ended up dead.” Tap tap tap TAP. I hate that TAP. I hate it I hate it so much so much.

Her shoulders sink, and she leans over to me, nudging my arm. “I know about Eden. They told me. I’m sorry, Fia.”

She smiles, but the smile is a lie, a preamble to what is coming next. The ice in my stomach from the smoothie spreads outward and I don’t want to hear her anymore.

“Have you ever asked James about his … particular life ambitions?” Her voice is as casual as a knife in the gut.

I scowl, tug on my boot top, and wish I’d worn sandals. “What ambitions would a sociopathic sex-obsessed slimeball possibly need?”

“He’s got a lot of plans,” she says, watching me closely. “I care about you, Fia, and I’m not trying to drive you away from him. I don’t understand it, but I know you need him. I’ve seen your thoughts when you’ve been away from him for too long. But you have to have your eyes open. You have to have enough information to make decisions.”

I throw my cup. It sails through the air and lands in the trash can without touching the sides. “I never need information to make decisions. There’s Sadie.” Now we have something to do and I can stop thinking and start doing.

It’s strange, finally seeing her as more than a photo. I never actually saw her in Iowa. My heart flutters. Maybe this is what it’s like to see a movie star in real life, this strange slowing and stopping of time, the recognition of knowing someone you don’t actually know. Sadie’s done so much to my life for never having been in it.

Her long hair is pulled into a ponytail at the base of her neck. She’s aggressively plain—no makeup, clothes dark and baggy. In spite of the weather she’s wearing a collared shirt, buttoned all the way up, and over that a hoodie jacket, with her hands shoved into the pockets. She trudges by, purse slung across her body. Her shoulders are turned in, her eyes on the ground.

Everything about her pleads to be ignored. I’m so sorry, Sadie.

“What do you know about her?” Pixie asks.

“Seer. She’s been flagged before, but she was nabbed by Lerner and we lost her. Either she’s broken with Lerner or they screwed up, because someone picked up her trail again yesterday. And here we are.”

“She doesn’t want to come with us, then.”

“It’s not really up to her.” One way or another, Sadie is going to the school.

I slide unnoticed onto the sidewalk behind her and watch as she navigates the space. There’s an almost dance to the way she twists and turns to avoid other people, the intense focus it must take to remain untouched moving through a crowd.

Pixie swears. “You’re right. She’s thinking, ‘Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me.’ It’s like being in
your
head—she’s adamant, obsessive about it. I doubt if she even knows she’s thinking it, but she’s not thinking anything else. Just that, over and over again.”

We keep following, watching her move with a runner’s grace belied by her horrible posture.

Pixie shakes her head, piercings glinting in the sun as she raises an eyebrow. “Maybe she was … maybe someone …
hurt
her. In a … way.” Pixie looks at me helplessly.

It isn’t that simple. Not that there would be anything simple about a situation like that, but it would be its own tragedy. Not one that would have put her in Keane’s Seers’ line of sight so many times. “We need to touch her, see what happens.”

That’s the key, I know it is, because when I think about touching her, everything in me screams to stop, to stay away, to avoid doing exactly that. I can listen to the directions of wrong as well as right. Pick the one thing you shouldn’t do, and do it. That’s how I became a model employee. That’s how I filled the school with the most promising new students they’ve ever had.

Maybe that’s what went wrong when I saved Phillip Keane’s life.

“So, what, run up and bump into her?” Pixie asks.

I narrow my eyes, take in all of Sadie. We don’t know where she’s staying. All we knew was that she’d walk by this café in the afternoon. Stupid Seers. But the strip malls have turned into residential streets, so we must be getting close.

“I don’t think that’d work. Look at the way she’s dressed—maximum skin coverage.”

“Oh, so just run up to her and casually stroke her cheek! No biggie, then.” Pixie huffs, digging a twenty-dollar bill out of her pocket. “I have to do everything. Hey!”

Sadie doesn’t turn around, and Pixie jogs to close the gap between them. “Hey, you dropped this.”

Sadie barely looks up, keeps walking. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yeah, you dropped it back there. Here.” Pixie holds it out, walking backward in front of Sadie, smiling.

Sadie shrugs, leaving her hands in her pockets. “Keep it.” She turns to look over her shoulder, and our eyes meet.

The blood drains from her face. She looks terrified, and then she looks sad, and then she looks the type of bone-deep, soul-weary tired I see reflected back at me from mirrors. There’s a swelling of something I didn’t know I could feel for anyone other than Annie. Compassion. I want to help her. I want to protect her, not because I like her, like how it is with Pixie. I want to protect Sadie simply because she needs protecting. She nods at me, a sort of resigned gesture, and then turns and walks toward home.

I let Pixie come back to me. Her eyes are wide. “Well?” I ask.

“She looked at my hand and thought, ‘No way I want to see what this girl’s future is like.’ But when she saw you—when she saw you, she thought, ‘I’m dead. I thought I’d have more time. Oh well.’ Why would she think that, Fia?” Pixie looks at me imploringly, begging me to explain to her why a girl I’d never met would equate me with her own death.

“I don’t know,” I say, and I’m falling apart because
I don’t know
. Anything.

What has she seen? What does she know?

What do I do?

I CRINGE AS SOMETHING SMASHES AGAINST THE WALL.
Shattering glass rains down onto the tile floor.

“Stop defending her!” Sarah screams. “Five for five! Five times I’ve tried to get to these girls, and five times Fia has already been there!”

“I don’t understand why—”

“No! You don’t! Because you keep trying to figure out why she’d do that, what her plan is, but the thing is, she doesn’t have one! She never has! She’s doing whatever James tells her, because she’s in love with him. Do you have any idea how much more effective their recruitment has gotten since Fia ditched you and went back to them?”

“Sarah,” Rafael says, his voice flat with warning. “You need to calm down.”

“You see what I’m seeing and then tell me if you can calm down!”

“Why don’t you go for a walk?”

“Why don’t you go to hell!” She takes a few deep, unsteady breaths, and when she talks again, it’s restrained. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I need to … I’ll be back in a while.”

The front door slams.

“I’m sorry about that,” Rafael says. “The last few weeks have been hard on her.”

I lean against the counter glumly. “I understand.” Ever since Sarah called confirming that Amanda was a real person—a twelve-year-old girl now whisked away to the Keane Foundation—I’ve been fighting the cold dread creeping in my bones. There’s a reason. There has to be a reason Fia would do this. Sarah’s wrong, I know she is. Fia wouldn’t do this otherwise.

I wish I could talk to her, call her, let her explain. But another part of me is terrified that if I did talk to her, she wouldn’t be able to explain anything, and I’d know once and for all that I was wrong about her.

I can’t be wrong about her. She’s my baby sister. She’s not evil.

Rafael’s hands come down on either side of my neck, thumbs rubbing slow circles in the muscles there. “You have a lot of tension,” he says.

I laugh. “Can’t imagine why.” His fingers feel heavenly, though. I close my eyes and barely hold back a sigh. “How long are you two here for?” They got in this morning, but Rafael has been with Adam the whole time in the makeshift office. Adam didn’t go back when he was supposed to a few days ago. Something about a more “peaceful environment” here, but I have a sneaking suspicion he stuck around to keep an eye on me.

Sarah came with Rafael. I was looking forward to spending time with her again, but … well.

“We’re leaving. I won’t risk being in the same place as you for long, not after what happened before. Though I would rather keep you with me.”

He sounds like honey, thick and sweet and earthy. I know he’s flirting with me, and I can’t help but be pleased. Who knows, maybe I don’t meet the guy from my visions until I’m fifty. What’s wrong with a little flirtation?

Rafael’s hands guide me around until I’m facing him. I can feel the lines of him, leaning in close, brushing against me. He pushes a strand of hair off my face, tracing his fingers down my cheek and lingering on my earlobe as he tucks the hair back.

And then, so suddenly I startle, his lips are against mine. I feel like time has slowed down, but not in a dreamy, romantic way. Though I’ve idly daydreamed kissing him a few times, I can’t seem to figure this out. I wonder what I should be doing—whether I ought to move my lips, or use my tongue, what I ought to do with my hands—and then I realize that if I’m standing here with his lips against mine, wondering these things, I am probably not feeling the way a girl should during her first kiss.

That stupid, stupid vision has ruined me. I really won’t be able to enjoy kissing someone for fun, not knowing there’s another someone out there who will make me feel the way I do in that vision by something as simple as holding my hand.

Rafael’s lips are soft and warm and perfectly pleasant, though, so when he pulls back after a few seconds I try to smile. I’m sure it looks more goofy than alluring, because that’s how I feel. I wish that kiss had been more than just two lips connecting. I could use a little magic in my life right now.

He laughs, a silent, soft exhalation. “You Rosen sisters. So beautiful and strange. I wish I could collect a dozen of you.”

I slap his shoulder. “That is not a compliment.”

He strokes my cheek again, leaving his fingers a few seconds longer than strictly necessary as someone else comes into the room.

“Your car is here,” Cole growls.

“Focus on your sister,” Rafael says. “And call me as soon as you see anything else.” His cologne lingers in his wake and I sit on a bar stool, bemused and unsure what to make of this development. If it even was a development. He’s Italian. Maybe they kiss a lot. It wasn’t terrible. It was nice. But I don’t think I’ll care if it never happens again with him.

Huh. Kind of anticlimactic for having waited nineteen years.

“Are you okay?” Cole asks.

“Hmm? Oh, I’m fine.”

I can feel him pacing in front of me. “Are you and Rafael—”

“Did you see that?” My cheeks burn.

“I—no, I mean, it’s none of my business, but—be careful, okay? You’re too honest for him.”

“I’m too honest? What does that mean?”

“You have no guile. Everything you feel is written on your face.” He sits on a stool next to me, drumming his fingers on the counter. “Like smiling. People smile all the time when they don’t mean it. If they’re nervous, if they’re lying, if they don’t know how to react to something. You never smile unless you mean it.”

“Your laugh is the same way.” I bite my lip, embarrassed at having admitted I notice things about him. There’s a line there that feels too weird to cross. “Besides, I wasn’t aware my smile made me unqualified to date Rafael.”

He lets out an exasperated breath. “That’s not what I mean.”

I elbow his side, flashing a smile that is apparently more honest than most. “I’m kidding. I’ll be careful. We’re not—I’m not dating him or anything.” The silence between us now feels heavy, laden with the awkwardness of
Cole
giving me romantic advice. Subject change. “Did you see Sarah?”